IOC chief plays down Beijing boycott threat

BEIJING: International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge on Monday downplayed threats of boycott of the Beijing Games even though he sought a rapid "peaceful resolution" to the Tibet unrest.
    
In unusual comments that highlighted the shadow cast by the Tibet issue over the Olympics, Rogge told heads of the National Olympic Committees here, "I am very concerned with the international situation and what is happening in Tibet".
    
"The torch has been targeted", Rogge said, a day after Tibetan protesters attempted to disrupt the Olympic Torch Relay in London by even snuffing out the flame with an extinguisher.
    
"The International Olympic Committee has expressed its serious concern and calls for a rapid peaceful resolution in Tibet," the IOC chief said.
    
Tibetan and human rights activists have been targeting the Olympic Torch to turn the global attention on alleged repression in the Himalayan region, more so after riots broke out in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa and other Tibetan-populated areas during the most vicious protests in two decades that have left 20 people dead.
    
China has accused the Dalai Lama, living in exile in India, of masterminding the unrest to "sabotage" the Olympics, a charge the Nobel laureate has strongly dismissed.
    
"Violence for whatever reason is not compatible with the values of the torch relay of the Olympic Games," Rogge said.

The IOC chief again brushed aside the talk of boycott of the Olympics, as Western powers seek to build pressure on China to hold the dialogue with the Dalai Lama, with some leading political figures calling for boycotting the opening ceremony of the Games in August.
    
Rogge said "Some politicians have played with the idea of boycotts" but there was "no momentum for a generalised boycott".
    
"We need the unity of the Olympic movement to help us overcome the difficulties. Our major responsibility is for offering good games to the athletes who deserve them," he said. "The athletes deserve and the world expects it, and the unity of the Olympic movement will deliver it."
    
The London incident came in for condemnation from China with a Beijing Olympic official calling it an "act of defying the Olympic spirit".
    
A "few pro-Tibet independence" activists tried to sabotage the London relay which was a "serious violation" of the Olympic spirit as the Olympic flame belonged to the world, a spokesman for the torch relay centre of the Beijing Olympic Organising Committee said.
    
The spokesman said as the highest symbol of the Olympic spirit, the Olympic flame represented peace, friendship and progress, according to official Xinhua news agency.
    
The 16th General Assembly of the Association of National Olympic Committees is meeting for three days from today - a tradition for the organisation to hold its biennial session in the Olympic host city.
    
The Chinese state media highlighted the "warm reception" to the Torch Relay in London but did mention about the attempts to disrupt it and the arrests made by the British police to foil efforts to grab the torch.
    
The state-run 'China Daily' said the "Olympic fever" gripped snowy London.
    
Xinhua said "as a grand festival" in London, tens of thousands of people lined the route of the relay to cheer the event, far outnumbering protesters. It also mentioned briefly about the attempt to disrupt the torch relay.
    
Tibetan activists and human rights groups have sought to bring Chinas human rights record under sharper focus by linking it with the Olympics and have intensified their campaign as the Games near.
    
The IOC had last week dismissed as "blatantly untrue" an Amnesty International report implying that awarding the Olympic Games to China had made the human rights situation worse.
    
"To go that far to say the Games contributed to a worsening situation in human rights, I would call it blatantly untrue," the IOC Coordination Commission Chairman Hein Verbruggen said, as the Commission wound up its last inspection tour here.
    
He also took potshots at politicians who held out the threat of boycotting the opening ceremony of Beijing Olympics.
    
"I have very little admiration for politicians that come here to sign business contracts and three or four months later say "perhaps I won't come to the opening ceremony", Verbruggen said.